Clean Climate Environment News Magazine December 2018

Clean Climate

Environment News Magazine ​December 2018

An initiative of RMN Foundation humanitarian organization

The year 2018 was another year of weather extremes and people around the world suffered the consequences of Climate Change. We need to act now and turn the Paris Agreement into reality. ~ UN Climate Change

Top Stories In This Issue

- Climate Change Conference in Poland - Fun Quiz Reveals Your Climattitude - How to Reduce Air Pollution Deaths - Air Pollution Is the New Tobacco - 2018 Emissions Gap Report

- Construction Spreads Pollution in Delhi - Green Group of Delhi - Tools to Assess Risks of Climate Change - Europe’s Most Polluted Capital City And More...

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Poland to Host Caring for Climate Meeting The UN Global Compact together with UN Environment and UNFCCC secretariat will convene the annual High-Level Meeting of Caring for Climate at Katowice in Poland on December 10, 2018.

It invites senior executives of business and finance, civil society​, the UN and Governments to identify key levers of action necessary to accelerate low-carbon and resilient development.

The meeting serves as a high-level stakeholder consultation – with a focus on private sector engagement – to inform and articulate the ambitious role business can play in the lead up to the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in 2019.

This gathering will help identify concrete actions, partnerships, and initiatives the private sector can undertake to mobilize greater ambition and stronger leadership to meet the well below 2°C towards 1.5°C trajectory.

A new report on climate ambition will be presented, providing business with a toolbox to augment corporate actions while enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions and the Sustainable Development Goals.

People’s Seat Initiative for Climate Change Conference To bring the voice of the people to the Climate Change Conference in Poland (called 'COP 24', from 2 to 14 December), the United Nations launched the ‘People’s Seat’ initiative, which invites people to submit messages for an address to be delivered to leaders attending the conference, by naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

The ‘People’s Seat’ initiative, launched by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called for inputs for the address to be delivered during the opening plenary session of the COP24, by Mr. Attenborough, on 3 December. People were asked to add their message with the hashtag #TakeYourSeat on Twitter.

The COP 24 will make a collective implementation plan for the 2015 Paris Agreement. The People’s Address will also trigger the launch of another initiative to engage global citizens: the ‘ActNow’ Bot via the United Nations’ Facebook Messenger account.

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It will recommend everyday actions – like taking public transport and eating less meat – and tracking the number of actions taken to highlight the impact that collective action can make on this critical environmental issue.

Fun Quiz Reveals Your Climattitude!

The UN Climate Change secretariat is running a campaign to encourage individuals to contribute to climate action. With the help of a fun quiz, the campaign discovers your knowledge about Climate Change.

Climate Action: Fun Quiz

After completing the interactive quiz containing 8 questions, you are shown your result or ‘climattitude’ that you can share with your friends through social media.

You can click​ here​ to participate in the quiz and know your ‘climattitude’.

WHO Suggests 5 Ways to Reduce 2/3 of Air Pollution Deaths by 2030 ● ● ● ● ●

Clean Energy in Health Facilities Political Leadership Harnessing the Power of Health Workers Expanding Air Pollution Programme Strong International Mechanisms

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Climate Change: Meet the Winners of Global Youth Video Competition Two young activists from India and Mexico, with their video reports on actions to fight climate change, have been selected as the winners of the 2018 Global Youth Video Competition on Climate Change.

The winners, chosen through an online public vote, are Vikas Yadav, 20 years old, from India for the category "Green and climate friendly jobs” and Andrea Sofia Rosales Vega, 20, from Mexico for the category “Responsible production and consumption”.

They will travel to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 24) in Katowice, Poland, in December and will work with the UN Climate Change Global Climate Action Team covering highlights of the meeting, reporting for a global youth audience.

The video by Sofia Vega shows how we can clean up urban areas while also making a difference to people’s lives. In his 3-minute entry​, Vikas Yadav visits rural areas of India, where he reports that more than 70 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture.

As food production is particularly sensitive to climate change, the farmers explain how innovative agriculture practices can play an important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Vikas encourages people to “Go green” in moving towards more natural growing and management techniques.

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“These two young people and their videos are encouraging examples of the global climate action needed to address climate change,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. “I congratulate Sofia Vega and Vikas, and I applaud all the entrants showcasing international youth’s essential response to climate change.”

Entries were received from over 100 countries, from Azerbaijan to Yemen, with young people between the ages of 18 and 30 submitting over 300 videos.

The competition was launched by UN Climate Change as part of its work on Action for Climate Empowerment, in partnership with tve (Television for the environment) and the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme, which is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, and supported by Fondation BNP Paribas and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU).

Congress Holds Demonstration for Pollution-Free Delhi The Delhi unit of Congress party organized a demonstration on November 22 to spread awareness about lethal ​pollution in Delhi. The party said thousands of Congress workers participated in the protest march that took place under the leadership of Ajay Maken in Connaught Place area of New Delhi.

Photo: Delhi Congress

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While Delhi Government and Indian Government are not taking any steps to control pollution in the city, the air in Delhi has an annual average of 122 µg/m3 of PM2.5* particles. That’s 12.2 times of the WHO safe level. This is an extremely dangerous level of pollution. [ *PM 2.5 concentrations measured in micrograms of particles per cubic meter of air (µg/m3). ]

Meanwhile, the local citizens have formed a Green Group of Delhi to inform public and the government about the harmful effects of pollution. The major activities of the Green Group of Delhi are around environment protection to save the environment from air pollution, dust pollution, noise pollution, water pollution, etc. in order to minimize the effect of pollution on Climate Change.

Construction Spreads Pollution in Delhi The dust and noise pollution in Delhi is drastically increasing because of government’s ill-conceived floor area ratio (FAR) construction policy. The FAR construction in occupied group ​housing societies – where millions of people live – is spreading lethal pollution that is harmful to children, men, and women including senior citizens.

Deadly dust and noise pollution is caused by FAR construction in occupied cooperative group housing societies of Delhi.

This construction activity is supported by a criminal nexus between deep-pocket builders and corrupt politicians / government officials. The total corruption money involved in FAR construction in Delhi is thousands of crores of rupees.

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The FAR-related corruption is supported by two of the most corrupt departments of Delhi: the Registrar Cooperative Societies (​RCS​) and Delhi Development Authority (​DDA​).

With this harmful FAR policy, the Delhi Government is using extended construction as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) which will first torture people with the lethal dust and noise pollution and then finally kill them mercilessly.

The polluted FAR construction in inhabited housing complexes – where people are living – is being compared to the poisonous gas chambers used by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust for the genocide of millions of European Jews. You can ​click here to study the full report on FAR construction and pollution.

What Is Offsetting?

Offsetting is a climate action that enables individuals and organizations to compensate for the emissions they cannot avoid, by supporting projects that reduce emissions somewhere else.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduced through offsetting are measured in UN Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). The CERs are generated from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

These projects, which are located in developing countries, earn 1 CER for each metric tonne of GHG emissions they reduce or avoid and are measured in CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq). The CERs can then be bought by people and organizations to offset their own emissions.

Courtesy: UN Carbon Offset Platform

Air Pollution Is the New Tobacco The air quality life index calculates that air pollution cuts average life expectancy per person by 2 years. “This is a matter of life or death. Let's start treating it as such,” suggests UN Environment.

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The UN agency for environment protection has released an infographic that depicts a number of measures that you can take to ensure better air quality.

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Join Green Group of Delhi The major activities of the Green Group of Delhi are around environment protection to save the environment from air pollution, dust pollution, noise pollution, water pollution, etc. in order to minimize the effect of pollution on Climate Change.

This is a non-political, non-partisan Group. The activities of the Group are being managed by its members and volunteers. Formed in August 2017, the ​Group had begun its journey from Dwarka, which is the largest residential suburb in Asia with a population of more than 1 million.

However, now it covers other parts of India’s capital New Delhi, which is among the most polluted and the dirtiest cities of the world.

Senior citizens participating in RMN Foundation campaign to stop extended construction and pollution in Delhi.

The Group holds mass awareness campaigns, environment protection education programs, intellectual discussions, and so on. It also coordinates with the government and law-enforcement agencies in Delhi to create a healthy living environment for people.

You are invited to join the Green Group of Delhi as a member by filling in a simple ​online form​. You can also donate to support the activities of the Group.

People from the entire city of Delhi can join the Green Group as members. More than 1 person from a family can become the member by providing their details in separate forms.

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Appeal for Donations RMN Foundation is a humanitarian organization that was formed in May 2015 as an educational and public charitable Trust for the benefit of humanity at large. It is registered with the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi at New Delhi, India.

Currently, all the activities of RMN Foundation are being managed single-handedly (without any support) by RMN Foundation founder Rakesh Raman who had left his job a few years ago to run this charity.

As RMN Foundation has embarked upon some major humanitarian projects during the past over 3 years, now it needs a significant amount of funds in the form of ​donations​ to expand the scope of its activities.

Individual Indian donors can help RMN Foundation with their contributions using the following bank details:

Bank Name: ICICI Bank Bank Branch: HL Square, Plot No. 6, Sector 5 (MLU), Dwarka, New Delhi 110 075 Account Number: 025005004368 Account Name: RMN Foundation Type of Account: Current IFSC Code: ICIC0000250

Award for Preventing Environmental Crimes Nine institutions and individuals from across Asia have been recognized by the United Nations, USAID, Interpol, and the Freeland Foundation for their outstanding work in preventing transboundary environmental crime in an annual award ceremony in Bangkok.

It was announced by UN Environment on November 22.

Wildlife trafficking was in the spotlight as winners from China, India, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand, and Viet Nam accepted awards for disrupting international criminal networks that have laid waste to wildlife across multiple continents.

“Humanity is the guardian of the natural world, and these winners are at the tip of the spear. Without their commitment to justice, our environmental laws and safeguards are a paper tiger. And though their work may often go unrecognized, it is their qualities of courage, dedication and integrity we need to see more of to preserve our planet,” said Dechen Tsering, UN Environment Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

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Photo: RMN News Service

Environmental crimes, which include illegal trade in wildlife, illicit trade in forests and forestry products, illegal dumping of waste including chemicals, smuggling of ozone depleting substances, and illegal mining, comes at a hefty cost – estimated at up to $258 billion per year. It is now the fourth largest illegal crime after drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and human trafficking.

Insurer Group Makes Tools to Assess Risks of Climate Change UN Environment’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has announced a partnership with 16 of the world’s largest insurers to develop a new generation of risk assessment tools. These tools will enable the insurance industry to better understand the impacts of climate change on their business.

The pilot group will develop analytical tools that they will use to pioneer insurance industry climate risk disclosures that are in line with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). This will require them to make use of the latest climate science, including some of the most advanced, forward-looking climate scenarios available.

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The tools and indicators that will be jointly developed and piloted by the Insurer Group will incorporate the latest scenario analysis to assess climate-related physical and transition risks in insurance portfolios.

Photo: UN Environment

While insurers are also major investors—with global assets under management of over USD 30 trillion—this initiative will focus on the assessment of climate risks in their core insurance portfolios and products.

The Insurer Group includes: Allianz (Germany), AXA (France), IAG (Australia), Intact Financial Corporation (Canada), Länsförsäkringar Sak (Sweden), MAPFRE (Spain), MS&AD (Japan), Munich Re (Germany), NN Group (Netherlands), QBE (Australia), Sompo Japan Nipponkoa (Japan), Storebrand (Norway), Swiss Re (Switzerland), TD Insurance (Canada), The Co-operators (Canada), and Tokio Marine & Nichido (Japan).

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November 2018

Which Is Europe’s Most Polluted Capital City?

Skopje, a city of more than half a million people, located in the centre of the Balkan peninsula in southern Europe has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) amongst the cities in Europe with the highest concentration of harmful fine particulate matter (PM) 2.5 in the air.

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Particulate matter 2.5 includes a variety of components such as nitrates, sulphates, organic chemicals, metals, dust and black carbon, which pose a risk to human health. Due to their small size, they penetrate the lungs and are known to cause heart, lung and other diseases.

The latest data released by WHO in 2018 shows a PM 2.5 annual mean level of 40 micrograms per cubic metre in Skopje—four times the recommended levels of 10µg/m³.

In terms of mean concentrations of both PM 10 and PM 2.5, the WHO Ambient Pollution Database for 2018 ranks Skopje as Europe’s most polluted capital city. Skopje is the capital of the Republic of Macedonia.

Moreover, Skopje suffers spikes in air pollution. To take one day as an example, on 13 November 2018, the European Environment Agency rated the Skopje municipality of Karpos as having “very poor” air quality. It registered 104.6µg/m3 of PM 2.5 – more than 10 times the levels recommended by WHO. WHO estimates that 2,574 people die prematurely in the country annually because of air pollution. The city’s pollution has been blamed on a mix of coal burning, fuel oil and wood burning stoves in households, open waste burning, emissions from aging industry and old, highly polluting vehicles.

In particular, the city has been reliant on lignite coal for heat during winters - a leftover from the Yugoslav era. Many Skopje residents cannot afford to move to cleaner, more sustainable forms of heating and thus rely on cheaper, more polluting ones, such as wood.

The geography of Skopje, surrounded by mountains, means that the polluted air is effectively trapped. Skopje is particularly affected by pollution in the winter season which has contributed several times to the closure of the city’s airport.

Courtesy: UN Environment

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Read and Download RMN Publications

Raman Media Network (RMN) Company – which is an integrated technology media and entertainment ​company – is working in diversified content creation, management, and

distribution businesses on a global scale. Among other content-based activities, the company runs 4 global news sites on different subjects.

The company also publishes and distributes digital content products and magazines among readers around the world. You can ​read and download our digital products that cover diverse content streams.

Is It Possible to Keep Global Warming Below 2°C? Global emissions are on the rise as national commitments to combat climate change come up short. But surging momentum from the private sector and untapped potential from innovation and green-financing offer pathways to bridge the emissions gap.

These findings along with a sweeping review of climate action and the latest measurements of global emissions were presented by authors of the 2018 Emissions Gap Report during a recent launch event.

The flagship report announced by UN Environment presents a definitive assessment of the so-called ’emissions gap’ – the gap between anticipated emission levels in 2030, compared to levels consistent with a 2°C / 1.5°C target.

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The findings offer the latest accounting of national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions, which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement.

While the authors highlight that there is still a possibility for bridging the emissions gap and keeping global warming below 2°C, the assessment issues a clear warning: The kind of drastic, large-scale action we urgently need has yet to been seen.

To fill this void, the 2018 Emissions Gap ​Report offers new insight into what meaningful climate action will look like.

Through new analysis of global emissions in the context of fiscal policy, the current pace of innovation, and an exhaustive review of climate action from the private sector and sub-national level, the authors have offered a roadmap for implementing the type of transformative action required to maximize potential in each of the sectors.

Meet the Editor The editor of this environment news magazine ​Rakesh Raman is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. Besides working at senior editorial positions with leading media companies, he was writing an exclusive edit-page column regularly for The Financial Express (a daily business newspaper of The Indian Express Group).

Nowadays, for the past over 7 years, he has been running his own global news services on different subjects. He also has formed a free Education and Career Counselling Center for deserving children at a poor J.J. Colony in Dwarka, New Delhi under his NGO – RMN Foundation.

He runs an exclusive community-driven anti-corruption social service “​Clean House​” to help the suffering residents of Delhi raise their voice against the growing corruption and injustice. He also creates and distributes a number of ​digital publications that cover areas such as technology, law, environment, corruption and transparency.

Earlier, he had been associated with the United Nations (UN) through United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development.

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Collaboration for Environment Content Project The ​Clean Climate environment news magazine is being published by RMN Foundation. It is being circulated among top government departments, environment protection organizations, colleges / universities, law-enforcement agencies, civil society organizations, social activists, and others in India and abroad.

RMN Foundation is looking for sponsors and collaborators across the world who can join hands with us to expand the environment content activity around ​Clean Climate​ initiative.

Contact

Rakesh Raman Founder RMN Foundation

463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16, Sector 4, Dwarka, Phase I New Delhi 110 078, INDIA

Contact by email

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